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Daily Transcripts
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06/18/2015
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1 Kings 19:1-21 ~ Acts 12:1-23 ~ Psalm 136:1-26 ~ Proverbs 17:14-15
Today is the 18th of June. Happy birthday to my second-born son, Cristian. Welcome to the Daily Audio Bible. I'm Brian. It is great to be here with you today, taking another step forward in our adventure through the scriptures this year. So we’re reading from the New Living Translation this week and from our Old Testament reading we’ll continue the journey through the life of the prophet Elijah today.
Commentary:
Alright, we covered a lot of territory today and kind of left ourselves with a couple of cliffhangers, but man, there is a bunch that we can think about during our day. Let’s start with Elijah.
So we just saw this unbelievably dramatic scene play out where there is famine or where there is this great challenge to the false idols, the prophets of Baal and Asherah. God shows up with Elijah bringing fire from heaven to consume this sacrifice. Everybody is obviously freaked out at this. Their hearts are turned to the Lord. Prophets of Baal are destroyed. King Ahab heads back to Jezreel before this great storm comes in as Elijah prays for it on the top of Mount Carmel. Then he runs ahead of him back to Jezreel and the torrential rain comes, rain that hadn’t fallen for 3 years. So like mighty, miraculous signs. When Ahab tells Jezebel, his wife, what had happened, who is a servant of Baal, she determines in her heart and mind that she is going to kill Elijah. Elijah is in the same town she is in. It’s fascinating because Elijah takes off and runs for his life. It is just such an ironic thing after such a mighty display of God's authority and power. He is running for his life away from Jezebel. He is on the run and he doesn’t flee like a little ways away. He flees a long ways away. From Jezreel to Beersheba is a long ways away. It is a long ways away even to drive. He lights out from there to go 40 days further out into the desert to Mount Sinai. So it is fascinating what must have been going on in Elijah’s heart, in his mind to cause him to be so fearful after such a display, but he is and he ends up on the mountain.
It is fascinating what God says. It’s not ‘I will protect you under the shadow of my wings’ or ‘you’re safe here’ or those sorts of things. He says “what are you doing here, Elijah?” That is a penetrating question. That is a disruptive question every time I read it because we see the move of God in our lives and then all too soon we can be kind of on the defensive again, fleeing again, cowering again and it is like God is saying “what are you doing here?”
“What are you doing here?” It is not in an unkind way that God says this to Elijah. He allows Elijah to pour out his heart.
“I'm the only one. I'm all there is. I'm the only one. Everybody wants to kill me. They’ve killed everyone before me. I'm it. Just take my life. I just want to be done with this.”
And God calls him out of the cave to meet with him and it is here there is a very famous passage where there is fire on the mountain, where there is an earthquake, where there is wind on the mountain and then there is God on the mountain. The way God comes to the mountain is in a still small voice. God has no problem with gargantuan supernatural kind of things, sort of displays of his authority as we witnessed in this showdown with Baal. But it seems like when he comes to us individually, he comes calm. He comes quiet and we have to recognize that. We have to be willing to still ourselves, because we are running from fire to fire to fire in our lives, from chaos to chaos and rarely do we ever inhale deeply, exhale deeply, center ourselves, calm ourselves and wait for God in the personal way that he comes. We’re usually just crying out to him frantically in all of the chaos of our lives, looking for him to do something crazy miraculous when maybe he would appreciate just a calm conversation. Maybe he is interested in relationship. In fact, it is not a maybe. He is interested in relationship and conversation where he can speak to us what we should do next, which is exactly what he does with Elijah. He comes and they have a calm conversation and he tells him what to do next, which he does. And it is here we meet Elisha, his assistant, the prophet that will take Elijah’s place.
We move into the New Testament and Peter is in jail, this same Peter that we’ve just kind of walked through this narrative where he has begun to realize that the kingdom is open to all, everyone. The gospel of Jesus is open to everyone in the world, not just the Jewish people. He is in prison now, but he is miraculously freed by an angel and it is amusing. It is like a little bit of comic relief when we come to this story, at least for me, because of Rhoda, the servant girl who is there in the house praying, and Peter shows up and she slams the door in his face, basically, running back in saying “Peter is outside” and not even letting him in.
Peter is still trying to get his head around the idea that this is actually happening. He’s not dreaming this. This is happening and so there is such an overjoyed situation there in the church as they’ve been interceding for Peter and he is freed miraculously. And he comes there to show himself, to show them that God is answering this prayer before he goes and takes cover so that the ministry of the gospel, the good news of the gospel might continue to be shared.
Then this beautiful Psalm 136, an ancient liturgical prayer, something that would be a call and response thing the people would declare over and over, what we must all declare over and over in the face of our history, in the face of our present, in the face of our future. God’s faithful love endures forever. That is something that I try to keep in my back pocket no matter what because to be able to pull that out and say wait a minute, no matter how twisted my mind is getting here, no matter how I'm looking at a set of circumstances, no matter what is coming against me, no matter what I'm facing, God is good and his faithful love endures forever. That is a fact. That is reality. That is how it is. That is how we recenter ourselves to what is real, no matter what it is we feel or what it is we see. His faithful love endures forever.
Then kind of filling it all in, the book of Proverbs in its own poetic way can say in one sentence something that is very obvious and something that is also very true and also something we forget a lot. Starting a quarrel is like opening a floodgate. That is just the truth. Once that gate is open, man, all sorts of things flood in that don’t need to be there. Like in the space of 5 minutes we can be flooded out. Paragraphs have been said that should not have been said. Feelings and hurt feelings are present that weren’t there just a few minutes ago. And they don’t need to be there. So according to Proverbs, stop. Stop before a dispute breaks out. Stop before that happens, before you open that floodgate. Stop. May we heed this advice.
Prayer:
Father, we invite you into all of this. We invite your Holy Spirit into all of this in the way that you come to us intimately in a still small voice, inviting us to calm down, have a conversation with you. We ask your Holy Spirit to continually remind us your faithful love endures forever. Your heart is good toward us. Forgive us, Lord, of the things we’ve blamed on you, the way that we’ve simply not believed that functionally in our lives. Your faithful love endures forever. By the power of your Holy Spirit we also ask for you to help us not open the floodgate before it is too late, before the dam is breaking all around us and we are being absolutely overwhelmed with words that we don’t mean and hearing words and ingesting them into our hearts that someone else doesn’t mean. Help us to stop before we start. Come, Holy Spirit, we pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.
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That’s all for today. I'm Brian. I love you. I’ll be waiting for you here tomorrow.
Community Prayer Requests and Praise Reports:
Hey there, DAB family. It’s Megan from San Francisco, this time calling from beautiful Sonoma County visiting family. I wanted to call in and give you guys just some updates and to thank you, everyone who had prayed for me. I called in a few times this school year asking for prayer. I want to thank you guys because it turned out to be my last year of college kind of unexpectedly, but in a good way. I graduated just a couple weeks ago. I want to thank you guys for the support you have given me. So, yeah, and I also wanted to give you guys a praise report. A few months ago, my brother totaled my car and God just provided us with a new one and so I want to praise God for that. Now I’d also like to ask for a little more prayer because I'm about to start an internship program with Intervarsity over the summer. I'm leaving tomorrow and I called about trying to decide whether or not I was going to do it a couple of weeks ago. I finally decided and I'm going and I would really appreciate any prayer for that. I still need to raise a couple thousand dollars to finish paying for the program and I know God put me in the program so he will provide. I just need some peace while I'm waiting for that provision. Thank you so much, family. I love you guys all and I pray for you every day. Love you guys. Bye.
Hello Dabbers. This is Forgiven from Michigan and I want to give a shout-out to Jason in Georgia, the doctor. Man, brother, what a part you have and I want to pray for you a minute. Thank you, Lord, so much for doctors that have passion like Jason does and cares for his patients and really shows where your hand is, Lord. And I do pray for that young man, that you will help him. Most of all, be with Jason and guide his hands and help him to be a godly influence on the people that he helps and protect his wife and if he has children, protect them because he is under a lot of pressure, Lord. Please be with Jason. I want to give a shout-out to the song leader in Florida. What a beautiful voice you have and I can only imagine you sing as pretty as well. Wow. What an opportunity it is to sing for the Lord a new song and how that warms our hearts when worship leaders do it to God and not just to themselves. Thank you, Lord, so much for all you do in our lives. Please watch over Jason and that young song leader from Florida. I didn’t get her name. Thank you, Lord, for everything you do. In Jesus’ name we pray, amen.
Hello. Hi my beautiful Daily Audio Bible family. Brian and Jill, thank you so much for this wonderful, wonderful gospel that you are spreading to God's people. I want to share with you really, really quickly how Daily Audio Bible influences, affects and improves my life. Me and my wife, like all marriages, we have our little arguments and our little tiffs and I pray to God to make me accountable to his Word. I pray that me and my wife would be able to submit to his Word. So sure enough, just like God always does, he answered my prayer in some form that I did not see. Now when I come home and I’ve had a bad day or if I'm acting unaccordingly to the Holy Spirit, and if I'm not walking in the Spirit according to Galatians 5, my wife will just kindly go over and pull up her smart phone and begin to play the DAB. I’ll be angry and mad and contentious towards her and all I hear is, “Hello, this is Brian. It’s great to be with you…” and all of a sudden this chill goes down my spine and I walk in the room and I say “sweetheart, I'm sorry. I love you. I was not walking in the Spirit. Please forgive me.” And I sit down and I listen to Brian’s voice read the Living Word of God. Family, let me tell you something. God is real. He loves each and every one of us, but when you pray to him, don’t be surprised when he answers your prayer in a way that you did not expect. God bless you. I love you all.
Hello dear family. This is Janice calling from Hot Springs, AR, and I have a special request please. You may or may not know that my husband, Dave, had pancreatic cancer 6 years ago and he has fought that off bravely and is doing well, but for the past 6 years he has been trying to find a way to eke out a living just so that we can make it in this world. He a year ago formed an operation with a friend and did a lot of work and grew this business. It’s been going crazy, doing well, and then his friend of 40 years turns and doesn’t want to pay him what he owes him so he took off with the money and the partnership is now gone. So we need to forgive this man, which we have, and we would love to have you pray for us for provision, forgiveness and direction in our lives now that everything has changed. So we have to just take stock, see what God wants to do with us and where he wants us to go from here. I appreciate your prayers. Thank you very much. I listen to you all. I have you in my book and I pray for you, too, daily. I love you, family. I love you very much. God bless.
Hi everybody. This is Lisa from western North Carolina. I'm calling in just desperate, desperate for your prayers. I'm being attacked literally, spiritually speaking, and it is coming from every direction. It is like a spiritual blitzkrieg. I’ve never felt such a heavy burden in the 31 years I’ve walked with the Lord. This is the biggest attack I think I’ve ever encountered. To be honest with you, it is starting to really wear me down. I'm trying to keep up the front, but I'm seemingly running out of ammunition. Different people just randomly have been attacking me, men in particular. Just random, out of the blue and my own mother called me and said that she hoped I would die and rot in hell. It is just really crazy to hear that coming from your mother. I'm just so worn down from the spiritual darkness encroaching about me. I really appreciate your prayers, family. I'm desperate for them. Thank you in advance. I love you all. God bless you.
Hey Dabbers. This is Kathleen L. again in Illinois. I just wanted to tell about a praise report. A while back, back in February I had prayed a prayer about the internal people in ISIS and for conversions within. Some of me joined me and committed to a daily prayer. I’ve been doing this since February just about every day. There have been some days I’ve forgotten, but I have prayed every day for conversions within. I wanted to go back and read that prayer again and will probably post it again and just pray that more people will commit to this. This is happening, people. There are conversions happening within and I’ve also added Boko Haram to it. I don’t know if I’ll finish this prayer, finish reading it, but I'm going to start. Lord Jesus, I pray for something that has been put on my heart, the conversions of some of the main leaders of ISIS and Boko Haram. You know them, Lord. You knew them before they were in their mothers’ wombs and while they were there. You know them like you knew the murderer Saul who later became Paul, the greatest missionary Christianity has ever known. I know there are some among them who are sickened as we are by the kidnappings, the beheadings and the burning of people while they are still alive, but they are afraid to leave. Give them boldness, Lord Jesus, to come to you and break way from these monstrous gigantic gangs, ISIS and Boko Haram. Let there be chaos on the inside of these and other terrorist organizations from the stirring of your Holy Spirit within leadership. Call them out, Lord, as you called Saul to stop persecuting you. Call them out like you called Lazarus from the dead. Call them out of their death and destruction and away from the demons who possess them, in Jesus’ name, amen. Amen. Please continue with us. Pray this every day. Thank you.
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Tamarie 06/18/2015 14:40 |
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